Tom Anderson

yeah CTCSS is basically a sub-audible tone your radio transmits along with your voice — the repeater won't open up unless it hears the right tone, it's how they filter out interference and random noise. most repeaters list their tone on the repeater directory, like repeaterbook.com is usually pretty accurate. once you find the tone for your local machine just program it into the T-CTCS setting on the baofeng, there's a bunch of youtube videos that walk through programming those radios step by step because yeah the manual really isn't great.
as for etiquette — kerchunking means just keying up to test if you hit the repeater without identifying yourself, which is technically illegal and also just annoying to people already on frequency. if you want to test if you're getting in, just say your callsign and something like "testing" and you'll usually get a response from someone. to join a conversation in progress, wait for a pause between exchanges and just say your callsign, people will usually acknowledge you and bring you in. most repeater users are pretty welcoming to new folks so don't stress too much about it.

so i finally passed my tech exam after studying for about 3 weeks and honestly i was way more nervous about keying up for the first time than i was about the actual test. i have a baofeng uv-5r that my cousin lent me and i found the local repeater frequency and just kind of sat there for like 20 minutes before i said anything
finally just said my call sign and that i was a new ham looking for a contact and this older guy came back to me right away, walked me through everything super patiently. we talked for maybe 10 minutes about where i lived and how long i'd been studying. it was nothing fancy but i was shaking the whole time for some reason. anyway just wanted to introduce myself, im KD9 something something i always forget the last two letters lol

the band edge thing is basically this — your signal isnt just the frequency you tune to, it actually has some width to it depending on the mode. so if youre doing SSB on 40m and you tune right to 7.125 your actual signal is spreading a few khz around that. the concern is if you get too close to the bottom of the general portion (which starts at 7.175 for phone i think, double check that) part of your signal might bleed into territory youre not licensed for or into the CW segment below. most guys just give themselves a comfortable buffer, like dont tune closer than 3-5 khz from any edge just to be safe. 7.125 should be totally fine for general phone, thats well inside your allocation. the very bottom of 40m down around 7.000-7.025 is CW only and you dont want to be doing voice down there regardless of license class.

oh man CQ WW is such a blast even if you're running barefoot into a modest antenna. honestly your first time through just do search and pounce, dont worry about running a frequency, you'll get frustrated trying to hold a pileup with 100 watts when there's EU stations running a kW into stacked yagis. just spin the dial, find someone calling CQ contest, give them your call and zone number and move on. that's it really.
for logging definitely grab N1MM Logger+ before the weekend, it's free and it's what pretty much everyone uses. takes a little while to set up your station info but once you do it handles dupe checking automatically which saves your sanity. there's good youtube tutorials for it. your setup honestly sounds fine for working a bunch of domestic contacts and maybe some easier DX on 15 and 20 meters, just depends on the conditions that weekend. have fun with it, thats the main thing your first time

so ive been going back and forth on this for a few weeks now and i cant really make up my mind. currently running an RTL-SDR v3 with SDR# and its fine for most stuff but i keep hitting the noise floor on HF and the 8-bit dynamic range is just killing me when theres a strong broadcast station nearby wiping out everything else
the HackRF is tempting because of the TX capability even though i know its only half duplex and the noise figure is pretty rough, something like 25dB i think without an LNA in front of it. but the frequency coverage is insane, like 1MHz all the way up to 6GHz which would be great for the satellite stuff i want to play with
the RSP1B from SDRplay on the other hand has much better dynamic range, 14-bit ADC i believe, and the noise floor is way lower but its RX only obviously. i mostly want to do NOAA/Meteor-M passes, some aircraft monitoring, and maybe poke around at some of the amateur satellites. do i actually need TX for any of that? probably not right now but i feel like ill want it eventually
anyone run both and can actually compare them from real use rather than just spec sheets

yeah the buzz is almost definitely common mode, the coax shield is carrying some of the return current and it ends up radiating back into the shack. a simple choke at the feedpoint will fix it, i usually just wind about 8-10 turns of the coax on a 4 inch diameter form, something like a PVC coupler or even a coffee can works. for 40m you dont need anything exotic. some guys swear by the ugly balun method, just coil the first few feet of coax right below the feedpoint into a bundle and zip tie it, works surprisingly well in practice even if its not as clean as a wound choke.
the solder job on the SO-239 matters more than people think too — twisted wire under tape is gonna cause you grief eventually especially if theres any moisture. worth taking the connector apart and soldering it properly if you havent already. the sloper part is fine, actually slopers can have a little directivity which isnt a bad thing at all.

so ive had my TS-590SG for going on 7 years now and honestly it still works great, no complaints really, but i keep reading about the IC-7300 and the IC-7610 and the new Icom stuff and wondering if im missing out. the SDR waterfall display stuff looks really useful for contesting and just general DX hunting.
my shack is pretty basic — 590 into a LDG tuner, 100w into a fan dipole up about 35 feet, nothing fancy. i work mostly 40 and 20m, some 17m when the band cooperates. i do a handful of contests a year, nothing serious, and just ragchew otherwise.
the question is whether the 7300 is actually a meaningful upgrade from the 590 or if im just falling for the shiny new thing. receiver wise is there actually a noticeable difference day to day or is this one of those things that only matters if youre in a competitive contest environment with big antennas. i keep going back and forth on this honestly

yeah the buzz is almost definitely common mode, the coax shield is carrying some of the return current and it ends up radiating back into the shack. a simple choke at the feedpoint will fix it, i usually just wind about 8-10 turns of the coax on a 4 inch diameter form, something like a PVC coupler or even a coffee can works. for 40m you dont need anything exotic. some guys swear by the ugly balun method, just coil the first few feet of coax right below the feedpoint into a bundle and zip tie it, works surprisingly well in practice even if its not as clean as a wound choke.
the solder job on the SO-239 matters more than people think too — twisted wire under tape is gonna cause you grief eventually especially if theres any moisture. worth taking the connector apart and soldering it properly if you havent already. the sloper part is fine, actually slopers can have a little directivity which isnt a bad thing at all.